Stockbrokers & Nominees

ShareGift is routinely used by brokers and custodians to help with small shareholdings held by their clients and in clearing errors accounts. Although we deal primarily with small shareholdings, we can also help with larger donations of shares.

Transferring Shares

If the Shares are held Electronically

Email us the details of the stock, including Sedol code, and we will arrange the trade & settlement dates. ShareGift can accept many foreign shares as well as listed UK stocks. We arrange Crest transfers in-house. The electronic transfer of foreign stocks is arranged via our custodians, Platform Securities. Please contact us first and we will pass on the instruction.

If the Shares are Residual

The Orr Mackintosh Foundation Ltd, PO Box 72253, London, SW1P 9LQ

Setting up an Internal ShareGift Account

If you are regularly processing a significant number of donations to ShareGift, we recommend that you set up an internal account for ShareGift donations. This can either be run as a suspense account or as a fully operating dealing account. A large number of brokers/nominee companies now do this, and have found it useful to operate in this way because it:

Speeds up the process of removing shares from individual client accounts

Reduces the cost involved in processing a large number of transactions via Crest or other settlements systems

Allows the transfer of stocks for which the register is closed (e.g. some stocks in liquidation) via a journal on your internal system. This will enable clients to transfer problem shareholdings from their accounts which may otherwise be attracting disproportionate management fees or be preventing them from closing their accounts.

Holdings donated to ShareGift in such a way can then either be periodically transferred to us, or sold and the proceeds remitted to us. We are happy to work with your organisation on the best mechanism for you. Please contact us for further information or assistance.

Telling your clients about ShareGift

You may wish to promote ShareGift to clients with small value shareholdings in the nominee or those with holdings which are unlisted and non-transferrable, as these shareholdings will otherwise remain indefinitely within their accounts attracting custodial charges. We are happy to help you with any wording relating to ShareGift in your literature, but if you write your own do check any ShareGift references with us before publication.

Should your client wish to suggest a charity to benefit in the future from ShareGift, please include details of the charity concerned when you transfer stocks to us. We are happy to send thank you letters to your clients, directly or via you, if this is requested. Please provide us with the necessary details.

FAQs for Stockbrokers/Nominees

Do you need to see an instruction from, or information about, the underlying client when accepting shares?

No. We do not require that you pass on any information about the individual donor.

Our client has mentioned a specific beneficiary charity other than ShareGift. What should we do?

We can accept donations of almost all transferrable shares, regardless of value, and we make donations to beneficiary charities based on donor suggestion. However this is not the same thing as giving directly to the charity in question. Please direct your clients to the information about how we decide which charities benefit. If your client is happy with how we work, please let us know their charity suggestion when donating the shares.

If your client states that they wish their donation to go directly to a specific charity (rather than to ShareGift with a suggestion of that charity), you should contact that charity directly. Your client should be aware that very few charities are interested in receiving small value shareholdings directly, or have the facility to accept unusual shareholdings. As a result the charity may subsequently direct the donor to ShareGift.

We wish to set up an internal ShareGift account. Do you have any specific requirements?

As such accounts are set up to reduce administration costs on both sides, we do ask that any management fees or other custodial charges be waived. We will also require that you provide us with statements and valuations for the account on request, free of charge, as we do need this information for our audit. If it is possible to have online access to the account we will be able to access the necessary information in this way.

We need you to complete certain forms in order to open an internal account. Can you do so?

Of course. Send us the paperwork and we will complete and return this.

Do you accept donations of cash?

Yes- we routinely receive donations of cash from stockbroker client accounts. These can either be credited to an internal ShareGift account or sent to us directly on an ad hoc basis. You can send cheques payable to ShareGift, or contact us if you wish to make a BACS payment.

We have made a donation of shares to ShareGift in error. Is it possible to retract the donation?

Where a donation of shares has been made to ShareGift in error, and where the error has been raised with us within one month we are happy to arrange for a reversal of the donation - you should contact us to arrange for the retraction. After one month, donations to ShareGift are considered to be complete. After this period it may not be possible for us to authorise a retraction. We do ask that all brokers and nominees have internal procedures in place to ensure that they have due authorisation from their clients for all transfers, particularly where the shares donated have a large value. Under no circumstances can we authorise a retraction simply because an investment has appreciated in value since the shares were donated.